Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery Page 7

  “Lottie, I thought you knew?” Greer begins to float over to the refreshment table and Kringle leaps from her shoulder to mine. “Sit back and enjoy the show,” she says. “They always put on a good one.”

  Wait a minute...

  “Oh, Kringle.” I bring my fingers to my lips. “I think Noah’s mother might really be a nefarious being.”

  The lights flicker on and off as the women all gather around the table. I don’t miss a beat as I head that way and Serena Digby’s eyes widen as she looks at me with a twinge of malice.

  “Well, well, ladies”—Serena nods my way—“it looks as if we have a guest in our midst. Lottie Lemon, will you be joining us this afternoon?”

  Suze ticks her head toward the door while giving me the stink eye.

  “Yes,” I say in defiance to her rudeness. “I think I will be joining you.”

  Kringle whips my shoulder with his tail. “Why do I get the feeling some of these women don’t really care for you?”

  I give a quick nod, letting him know he’s not wrong.

  Suze sighs my way. “Carlotta here is with child. She won’t stay long. I’m sure she needs a nap or a cookie.”

  Suze knows I hate it when people call me by my formal moniker. Just as much as I know that she hates it when people call her by hers.

  “I sure am with child, Suzanna.” I take a moment to soak in the abject horror on her face. Her name is no big deal. It’s cute. I have no idea why she would have a hang-up about that. Mine is sort of cute, too, but Carlotta herself is my hang-up about my formal name. Besides, Lottie suits me better. “In fact, this just might be your own grandchild,” I say, patting my belly.

  The group of women oohs and ahhs, but mostly they gasp at the salacious detail I just let slip.

  Serena wastes no time in scoffing. “You mean, you don’t know who the father is?”

  “Well”—I shrink back a bit—“not necessarily.”

  Kringle chortles as he skips across to my other shoulder. “This is getting fun.”

  Elodie, the tall woman with the dark bangs fringing her eyes, leans in. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

  “I don’t know that either. In fact—”

  “Lie down on the table,” she instructs before I can finish, and then an entire group of women is helping me lie down over the bistro tables they’ve strung together and I’m looking up at the glass ceiling covered in snow, wondering what in the heck I’ve just gotten myself and my poor unborn child into.

  Elodie swoops over toward my belly. “Oh, we’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this.” She plucks her necklace off, and soon the triangular pendant is rocking back and forth over my belly. “We can predict what you’re about to have right here. Wouldn’t it be nice to know whether you’re having a boy or a girl?”

  “What a Christmas treat, Suze!” someone shouts.

  “This is going to be tasty,” another points out.

  Kringle runs down the length of my body. “I think they’re going to eat both you and the baby, Lottie! I’m pretty sure that will ruin Christmas for the both of you.”

  Why doesn’t it surprise me that Suze is a part of some baby-eating cult? Makes perfect sense, in fact.

  Elodie offers a tight smile my way, and I can’t help but note she has an exotic look to her, smooth skin, thin yet dark stained lips, and there’s something about her moon-shaped eyes that demands you look into them.

  “If the pendent drifts north to south, it’s a boy,” she tells me. “If it’s east to west, it’s a girl.”

  “No, no.” Serena takes off her own necklace in a huff and holds it over my belly. It’s a silver necklace as well, but the pendant looks to be a silver snowflake. It’s probably something far more nefarious, but my innocent mind refuses to acknowledge it. “It’s east to west for a boy, Elodie. How many times do we have to go over this?” She sniffs as she looks to the other women. “Suze, please light the sage and circle the room.”

  Suze whips out a small fistful of smoking weeds, and then she’s stalking around the crowd gathered around me in a counterclockwise direction.

  Serena clucks her tongue. “Come on, ladies. You all know the chant. Beguilers beguile!”

  Soon, the room booms with the words beguilers beguile over and over again until I’m terrified of both the sound of these women’s voices and the morbidly serious look on their faces as well. I’m suddenly missing the shoestring budget gals and those friendly cheapskate smiles they gave so freely.

  Little Lea floats above me. “Shall I slaughter them all, Lottie?”

  I’m just about to give her the murderous thumbs-up when Elodie’s pendant begins to swing violently from side to side.

  “It’s a boy!” she shouts, and the room breaks out into a congratulatory cheer.

  A rush of adrenaline fills me as I get up on my elbows and look down at my tiny blooming bulge.

  “A boy?” I can’t help but laugh with delight.

  “Oh, Lottie!” Mom pokes her head between two of the women’s shoulders. “This is wonderful! I’ve already got two granddaughters, and now I have a grandson to go along with them. Thank you.” She blows me a kiss, and I bite down a smile as tears come to my eyes.

  Serena shakes her head. “I wouldn’t go painting the nursery blue just yet.” She swats Elodie’s silver triangle out of the way and holds her own pendant over my belly, and sure enough, it’s moving in the opposite direction. “North to south. It’s a girl.” She holds up her necklace and the room goes wild as if she just won a showdown at high noon. “Congratulations, Suze. You’re going to have a granddaughter.”

  “She won’t be my granddaughter.” Suze is quick to renounce the baby in my belly, and I’m not all that surprised.

  Kringle runs back my way. “She’s a real witch, isn’t she?”

  I give a quick nod to the astute little spook.

  Serena’s lips knot up to the side. “A paternity debate.” She taps the tip of her nose with her finger. “Ah! We’ll do a noose goose to settle the matter.”

  “Oh no.” I shake my head frenetically. “I don’t think there’s any reason to get a noose involved.” But before I can protest any further, Serena has produced a full-blown rope twisted in the nefarious position and has it dangling over my belly like an oxygen-depriving threat.

  “Man of the badge, or man of the gavel!” Serena shouts. “The paternity of this child, we shall unravel!” Her voice echoes through the room, and all four ghosts that take up supernatural space in this B&B are suddenly hovering over my head. I give a little wave to Winslow since I didn’t have a chance to say hello to him yet and he offers a somewhat mournful smile back.

  “What in the fresh heck!” Carlotta dances over while doing an odd little jig, trying to balance the tote bag weighing down her shoulder. “Free candles to all card-carrying magic mavens. Just don’t kill my Lot Lot!” She dumps her bag, and almost every woman here swoops on over.

  “I’m fine, Carlotta,” I say as she helps me off the table.

  “In that case—all candles fifteen percent off!” She tucks her head close to mine. “It sounds like fifty, and at this time of the year people are desperate for a steep discount.”

  I land back on my feet as Suze surges her way through the crowd until she crops up next to me.

  “Don’t stop now, Serena.” She practically shakes the woman. “I need to know whose baby she’s carrying.”

  Elodie leans in and looks deep into my eyes. Her own eyes are a strange combination of amber with yellow glowing specks. I’ve never seen anything like them.

  “It’s the man of the gavel.” Elodie offers a somewhat prideful smile my way.

  Serena grunts as she, too, looks deep into my eyes. “You’re wrong again. The girl child belongs to the man of the badge. And you need more iron in your diet, Lottie.”

  She takes off for the refreshment table, and Suze stalks off after her—wanting a refund on her presumed grandchild, I’m guessing.

  “W
ait!” I call after Serena. I still need to ask if she’s a beguiler. If anyone in this room is a beguiler, I’m betting it’s her. It’s not the entire lot of them, is it?

  Mom hops over. “Lottie, the women just love your eggnog trifle. Double my order for the craft fair,” she says as she skips over to the candle bonanza, and Carlotta joins her to do the requisite cash grab.

  “Elodie, I’m sorry about your loss.” I shrug because I really didn’t know how to segue into this one.

  “Ooh!” Kringle hops from my shoulder to the top of Elodie’s head. “We’ve got a live one, haven’t we, Lottie? Shall I pluck an eye out so she’ll tell us the truth?” A knife-sharp claw erupts from his tiny paw and I quickly shake my head his way. Why do I get the feeling he’s auditioning for the part of the Grim Reaper? Hey? Maybe Kringle killed Gloria Abner?

  Elodie sighs. “I know it’s a very sad thing. And to think our own Suze pulled the trigger.”

  My lips part. I’m unsure of what to say next. “Allegedly. Did you know of a feud they had?” Not the direction I should be headed in, but I’ll admit, it feels right.

  Elodie lifts her chin and her exotic beauty shines through. “Gloria was a piece of work. I’m sure she had a beef with Suze over something.”

  “Did you have a beef with her?” For some reason, just the word beef sends a wave of nausea pulsing through me.

  Not now, not now.

  I clench my fists so hard, my fingernails press into my flesh. And oddly, it curbs the urge to upchuck my cookies.

  Elodie blows out a breath. “Gloria and I used to work together back before she retired—at Aunt May’s Chocolatiers.”

  “Sounds like a delicious job.”

  Her lips flicker into the hint of a smile. “It was once she left. Gloria had secrets and, well, let’s just say I had a few myself.” She cranes her neck over at the Carlotta-sponsored chaos taking place. “Oh, I have to go. I just have to get my hand on a half a dozen of those three wicks. I’m a sucker for a good deal.”

  “Wait!” I step in front of her and nearly get run over in the process. “Who do you think could have done this to Gloria? Outside of Suze, of course.”

  I give Suze the side-eye from across the room. There she is trying to get the leader of this coven to backtrack on my baby’s paternity prediction, and here I am trying to defend her questionable honor.

  “Honestly?” Elodie twitches like a horse anxious to get out of the shopping gate. “I never did trust, Candy.”

  “Candy Brighton?” I toss out her name as if we were old friends. But we’re far from it. And seeing that she’s friendly with Cormack, we won’t be bonding over pendants and nooses anytime soon like I am with good old Elodie here.

  She gives a curt nod. “I invited her to a few places, and she’s not very friendly. In fact, I’ve only ever seen her at the Christmas Angels club. She’s sort of a snob that way.”

  “Was she a snob to Gloria, too?” I ask just as Kringle flicks his sharpened nail in her direction and she inches back as if he nicked her skin.

  Her hand touches her cheek and she inspects it. “I could swear I just got bit by something.”

  “Probably a no-see-um.” I shake my head at Kringle. I’ll have to have a talk with the sneaky specter. “So you were saying about Candy?”

  She tries to step past me, but I step right along with her.

  “Candy was nice to Gloria.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Everything about the girl is off-putting to me. Probably because I wasn’t raised the way she was. You know the type, the boarding school socialite that makes everyone feel they’re either in or out of her clique?” She says clique in air quotes. “She made Gloria feel in and, well, she makes me feel very out. I’m not a fan of that behavior.”

  “That’s not really a reason to kill Gloria, right?”

  Kringle holds his hands out by his fuzzy little face and shrugs, and I bite my lip to keep from cooing over at the little pointy-tailed angel, he’s just that cute.

  Elodie glances to the ceiling a moment. “Maybe. Or maybe that was a part of the plan. Excuse me.” She glides past me and dives straight into the middle of the candle chaos, scooping up as many three-wick jars as she can hold.

  Candy Brighton?

  I glance over at Suze as she rants away to Serena and shake my head.

  All right, Suze. I’ll talk to Candy next.

  Don’t say I never did anything for you.

  The baby kicks and my hand quickly clamps over my belly.

  Huh. It makes me wonder if I’m in the process of doing something much bigger for Suze—like giving her a grandchild she already wants nothing to do with.

  Don’t worry, Sugar Cookie. Mommy wants you here, plenty.

  And I want that killer put away, too.

  It’s almost Christmas, and I want this holiday homicide solved long before Santa ever hops into his sleigh.

  And if I can make a prediction myself—it will be.

  I’ll make sure of it myself.

  Chapter 6

  “Other women wish they can be you, Lot Lot,” Carlotta says after I finish up puking into the bushes.

  Once Everett texted and said the house was ready for me, Carlotta and I packed it up and headed back to Country Cottage Road. We made it a little more than halfway before my stomach became a spin cycle and I had to deposit my lunch into the bushes in front of my sister Lainey’s house. A part of me is tempted to run on in and see my new little niece, Josie. And the other part of me doesn’t want to tell my sister the real story behind my impromptu visit, so I decide to do a quick rinse with the travel-size mouthwash I keep in the glove compartment, chug some water, and soldier on.

  “No one wants to be me,” I counter as we pull onto our street. “Look at that.” I slow the car down next to the two lots of charred out rubble where my home and Everett’s once stood. Not even the snow wants to stick to that mess. “That’s outright destruction, Carlotta. And it’s all because I couldn’t seem to listen to Nell and not get involved with the Hearst murder investigation back in October. I’m an idiot is what I am. And somewhere in the burnt out mess lies a metaphor for my life that I don’t dare try to winnow out. Besides, I’m a mother now.” I sniff back tears, my eyes still very much glued to the vacant wasteland before me. “I’ve got someone else to think about other than myself. I need to put the baby first. Maybe Noah and Everett are right. Getting tangled up in these homicide investigations isn’t in the baby’s best interest.” They’ve been saying it for months. And I’ve been ignoring them for months on the subject, too.

  “Don’t let a man tell you what to do with your life, Lot Lot. I may not have taught you much, but you get that nugget through your stubborn little noggin. You’re a killer catcher, Lottie Lemon. Legends are made of women like you. Sure, you’re probably going to get snared in the barbaric clutches of some deranged psychopath one of these days—and Foxy and Sexy will have to concede and marry those blonde bimbo stalkers of theirs—and your kid will be raised by Evie Stevie and me—and the bakery will end up closing its—”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, never mind.” I zip into my new driveway and honk the horn per the instructions Everett gave me, and sure enough, Noah and Everett come running out of the house, as do Evie and Mayor Nash.

  “Ha!” Carlotta barks. “Well, look at the party!”

  We get out of the car and my eyes magnetize to my new rental.

  “The door!” I gasp. When I left this morning, the little white house across the street from Noah’s cabin was almost an exact replica of my old rental which once stood next door to it. It has the same one-level design, same wraparound porch, but the door had faded from a cheery bright red like my own door had been, to a somewhat spotted pink catastrophe.

  After my neighbor, Hot Hannah, was brutally killed last month, the house went for lease and Everett snatched it right up. We had a chance to tour the inside, and everything is pretty much the same as my old place with the exception that the master bedroom and bathroom
are palatial.

  That bathtub can fit half of Honey Hollow in it, and you can bet your bottom bubble bath dollar that Everett and I will be swimming in it as soon as tonight—naked, of course, with lascivious intent. Our stay at Noah’s has been a rather prolonged dry spell for the both of us. Let’s just say I’ve made more coital visits to the Ashford Courthouse than I’ve ever imagined these past few weeks. But in my defense, I have needs and hormones and a husband to keep happy.

  But right now, that door is painted a bright candy apple red, and there’s even a fresh evergreen wreath on it. A strand of colorful Christmas lights is strung over the roofline and lit up like a dream. It might be late afternoon but with those dark purple clouds up above, and the entire house illuminated like a jack-o-lantern, it looks more like the dead of night.

  Evie hops in front of me. “Check out the decorations on the porch, Mom!” She grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs.

  Giant poinsettias sit at either side of the door and evergreen garland outlines the door.

  “This is gorgeous,” I say, turning to look at Noah and Everett.

  Everett has on jeans and a flannel, a look I’m not used to seeing on him, and, might I add, he looks drop-dead gorgeous. Not a euphemism someone like me should be using but still.

  “It was all for you, Lemon.” He pulls me in, and I can’t help but notice a sugary sweet scent clinging to his shirt. “I went down to the tree lot and picked up the garland and the wreath.”

  Noah steps up. “And as soon as your car pulled away this morning, I painted the door for you.”